The Game

by Strauss, Neil

• ISBN13: 9780060554736
• ISBN10: 0060554738
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-08-17
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

Summary

A bestselling author and journalist offers an intriguing, humorous, and informative inside look at a subculture of men trying to perfect the art of picking up women.

Excerpts

The Game
Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists

Meet Mystery

The house was a disaster.

Doors were split and smashed off their hinges; walls were dented in theshape of fists, phones, and flowerpots; Herbal was hiding in a hotel roomscared for his life; and Mystery was collapsed on the living room carpet crying.He'd been crying for two days straight.

This wasn't a normal kind of crying. Ordinary tears are understandable.But Mystery was beyond understanding. He was out of control. For aweek, he'd been vacillating between periods of extreme anger and violence,and jags of fitful, cathartic sobbing. And now he was threatening to killhimself.

There were five of us living in the house: Herbal, Mystery, Papa, Playboy,and me. Boys and men came from every corner of the globe to shakeour hands, take photos with us, learn from us, be us. They called me Style. Itwas a name I had earned.

We never used our real names -- only our aliases. Even our mansion, likethe others we had spawned everywhere from San Francisco to Sydney, hada nickname. It was Project Hollywood. And Project Hollywood was inshambles.

The sofas and dozens of throw pillows lining the floor of the sunkenliving room were fetid and discolored with the sweat of men and the juicesof women. The white carpet had gone gray from the constant traffic ofyoung, perfumed humanity herded in off Sunset Boulevard every night.Cigarette butts and used condoms floated grimly in the Jacuzzi. And Mystery'srampage during the last few days had left the rest of the place totaledand the residents petrified. He was six foot five and hysterical.

"I can't tell you what this feels like," he choked out between sobs. Hiswhole body spasmed. "I don't know what I'm going to do, but it will not berational."

He reached up from the floor and punched the stained red upholsteryof the sofa as the siren-wail of his despondency grew louder, filling theroom with the sound of a grown male who has lost every characteristic thatseparates man from infant from animal.

He wore a gold silk robe that was several sizes too small, exposing hisscabbed knees. The ends of the sash just barely met to form a knot and thecurtains of the robe hung half a foot apart, revealing a pale, hairless chestand, below it, saggy gray Calvin Klein boxer shorts. The only other item ofclothing on his trembling body was a winter cap pulled tight over his skull.

It was June in Los Angeles.

"This living thing." He was speaking again. "It's so pointless."

He turned and looked at me through wet, red eyes. "It's Tic Tac Toe.There's no way you can win. So the best thing to do is not to play it."

There was no one else in the house. I would have to deal with this. Heneeded to be sedated before he snapped out of tears and back into anger.Each cycle of emotions grew worse, and this time I was afraid he'd do something that couldn't be undone.

I couldn't let Mystery die on my watch. He was more than just a friend;he was a mentor. He'd changed my life, as he had the lives of thousands ofothers just like me. I needed to get him Valium, Xanax, Vicodin, anything. Igrabbed my phone book and scanned the pages for people most likely tohave pills -- people like guys in rock bands, women who'd just had plasticsurgery, former child actors. But everyone I called wasn't home, didn't haveany drugs, or claimed not to have any drugs because they didn't want toshare.

There was only one person left to call: the woman who had triggeredMystery's downward spiral. She was a party girl; she must have something.

Katya, a petite Russian blonde with a Smurfette voice and the energy ofa Pomeranian puppy, was at the front door in ten minutes with a Xanax anda worried look on her face.

"Do not come in," I warned her. "He'll probably kill you." Not that shedidn't entirely deserve it, of course. Or so I thought at the time.

I gave Mystery the pill and a glass of water, and waited until the sobsslowed to a sniffle. Then I helped him into a pair of black boots, jeans, anda gray T-shirt. He was docile now, like a big baby.

"I'm taking you to get some help," I told him.

I walked him outside to my old rusty Corvette and stuffed him into the tiny front seat. Every now and then, I'd see a tremor of anger flash across hisface or tears roll out of his eyes. I hoped he'd remain calm long enough forme to help him.

"I want to learn martial arts," he said docilely, "so when I want to killsomeone, I can do something about it."

I stepped on the accelerator.

Our destination was the Hollywood Mental Health Center on VineStreet. It was an ugly slab of concrete surrounded day and night by homelessmen who screamed at lampposts, transvestites who lived out of shoppingcarts, and other remaindered human beings who set up camp wherefree social services could be found.

Mystery, I realized, was one of them. He just happened to havecharisma and talent, which drew others to him and prevented him fromever being left alone in the world. He possessed two traits I'd noticed innearly every rock star I'd ever interviewed: a crazy, driven gleam in his eyesand an absolute inability to do anything for himself.

I brought him into the lobby, signed him in, and together we waited fora turn with one of the counselors. He sat in a cheap black plastic chair, staringcatatonically at the institutional blue walls.

An hour passed. He began to fidget.

Two hours passed. His brow furrowed; his face clouded ...

Three hours passed. The tears started ...

The Game
Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists. Copyright © by Neil Strauss. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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Excerpted from The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists by Neil Strauss
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